


Was Sorta Hopin' That You'd Stay

by orphan_account



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Feels, Family Problems, Fluff and Angst, Implied Neglect, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, It doesn't last long tho, M/M, Minor Eddie Diaz/Shannon Diaz, Multi, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn-ish, like maybe 2 or 3 chapters and its very little, marriage issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26725444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Evan "Buck" Buckley is fresh out of high school and looking for something. Anything. He just wants to be wanted.Edmundo "Eddie" Diaz has been home from his first tour with the Army for a month and life has never felt more difficult. His marriage is on thin ice. His son is growing up too fast.When they meet, only time will tell if they're what the other needs.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	1. there was no cracks to grasp or gaps to claw

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Do I Wanna Know?" by Arctic Monkeys

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, welcome to my self indulgent pre-canon Buddie fic. Apologies for the summary, I hate it too, but I won't be able to come up with something better.
> 
> I will include triggers at the end, because there will be a decent amount. This focuses on Buck and Eddie before canon so they gotta have their trauma. Plus mentions of Maddie and Doug... Also, beware, in the first couple chapters Buck will be called Evan.
> 
> Any who, thanks for reading.
> 
> (chapter title from "Crying Lightning" by Arctic Monkeys. I'm not sure if this will be a pattern yet or not.)

The house is silent as Evan walks into it. He kicks his shoes off as he holds back the tears. His graduation cap is wedged between his elbow and gown-covered side. The lack of noise just adds to his heightened emotions as he drags his feet up the stairs to his room. He passes the closed door that used to be Maddie’s room and debates opening it. Maybe it would feel less lonely if he wasn’t in his own room. His room that holds all of the moments he sat with music blaring as he wished for some other noise to fill the house. 

He keeps going though. Stopping in his doorway and seeing his duffel bag, from the rotating sports he uses to feel noticed, sitting on his bed. Without another thought, as much clothes as he could fit filled the bag. He brings it to his car and grabs his backpack from the backseat. The contents of the backpack are quickly dumped onto his unmade bed, and it’s refilled with everything he deemed important enough to take with him: pictures of him and Maddie, a couple notebooks with stories he was proud of, his laptop and a handful of other things. 

The graduation gown that he’s still in gets caught on the foot of his bed as he goes to another part of his room. It’s in that moment that the tears start. He fights it off of him as they stream down his face. The tie, that his mother insisted he wore before she got a work call, starts feeling like it’s closing in on his throat and he tries ripping it away from his neck. He unintentionally holds his breath as he struggles more and more until it’s loose enough to go over his head. He starts gasping for breath the moment it's off and falls into the ground below him. His arms wrap around his knees as he keeps trying to suck air into his lungs and the image of him looking in the crowd for his parents fills his view. 

Evan isn’t sure how long he stays like this, but as soon as he can breathe soundly again, he grabs everything he’s taking and puts it into the trunk with his duffel bag. He sits in the front seat of a minute trying to ignore the cold feeling of the air hitting his teeth. This wasn’t his first panic attack. He knows the lack of oxygen is going to make him feel weird for a while and the crying makes him feel drowsy. The drying tear tracks on his face make his cheeks feel tight and overall he just feels the need to get out of this town.

Without looking at his childhood home, Evan puts the car in reverse and gets on the closest highway. He’s glad the roads aren’t busy as he starts this long drive. There’s only one place he can think of to go.

\---

The weight of this son in his arms was something Eddie would forever be amazed by. He looked down at the peaceful expression on the sleeping 18 month old and wished he could do this all of the time. Christopher was with him as much as he could manage since he came back a month ago. Unfortunately, that wasn’t often. He was working part-time at the local auto shop and helping what felt like full time at his new business, and it left him with little time at home. 

“Eddie.” He heard whispered from his left. He looks up to see Shannon standing in the doorway. He waited for her to say something else before looking back down at Christopher. “Come to bed, Eddie. You’ve got work in the morning.”

He debates it if he’s being completely honest. He’s content here with his son and his bed with his wife is like a sheet of ice. Eddie thinks he felt closer to her in Afghanistan sometimes. The thought makes him decide to get up though. He carefully lays Christopher down in his bed and turns to Shannon. He grabs his wife’s arm and pulls her into his chest. She stiffens at first, but starts to relax as his arms wrap around her and her head finds a place under his chin. Eddie doesn’t know how they got this far away from each other, but he doesn’t want his son to have to grow up with them being so distant and angry.

“Let’s go to bed then.” He whispers while pressing a kiss to her forehead. She just nods as they make their way down the hall. When Eddie lays down, he reaches out and grabs her hand. He isn’t ready for her to be sleeping so close to him, but he knows they both need the comfort. 

\---

Evan sat in his car and watched people walk from their doors to their cars. There was a couple laughing with travel coffee mugs. A girl who was probably his age with bags under eyes and a messy ponytail. An older man walked past with his dog soon after. It was nearing 6am and Evan was debating if it was too early to knock on Maddie’s door. He knew she had work in an hour anyways. Doug was more of his fears in all honesty. 

He doesn’t have time to think about that more as his passenger door opens. He jumps at the action, ready to get out himself, until he sees his sister next to him. Maybe he should’ve gotten more sleep at the rest stop. 2 hours sounded like enough though.

“Ev, what are you doing here?” She asks with an accusation in her voice that he wasn’t ready for. He goes to respond, but stops to look at her first. He hadn’t seen her since 2 years ago at her wedding. She was skinnier. It was almost sickly how hollowed her cheeks were. There were bags under her eyes that she’d obviously tried covering with makeup. This wasn’t the Maddie who would read him stories and help with his homework. The one that would make him laugh when he really wanted to cry after another disappointment from their parents. This was a shell of his sister and he didn’t know what to do with that.

“I, uh, I had to get out.” Is all he says. She rolls her eyes at him and huffs as she sits back against the seat.

“Don’t you have school in an hour? Evan, you shouldn’t be here.” The sentence stunned him even more. She didn’t know. He’d been counting down the days until he left High School and his sister didn’t even think he was finished. 

“I graduated yesterday, Maddie.” His voice breaks at her name, but he keeps talking. “I graduated yesterday and no one was there. I texted you about it. Mom got a case and Dad didn’t want to go without her, so suddenly there was an emergency at work for him too… You know he was just at the bar though.”

He lets out a breathy chuckle at that. Tears were falling onto his cheeks again, but he really couldn’t care. He just looked at Maddie as she sat stunned.

“Ev…” He hears her whisper as he decides to wipe the tears away. He just shakes his head at that. At this point, whatever she has to say doesn’t matter to him. This is all the love he gets it seems.

“It’s fine, Maddie. You’re gonna be late for work. Don’t wanna keep you any longer with my pity party.” She tries shaking her head and speaking to him again, but he just unlocks her door and nods towards it. Maddie stares at him for a long minute and debates what to do, but then there’s a knock on the window.

They both look up to see Doug staring in with a confused face. Buck sees Maddie stiffen in the corner of his eye, but his attention stays on his brother-in-law. He rolls the window down as Doug starts talking.

“Hey, uh, Evan, right? It’s nice seeing ya, bud, but Maddie,” His voice hardens as his wife’s name falls from his lips. “We’re going to be late for work. Don’t want that right?”

She just nods quickly and starts opening the door. Evan just watches as she gets out. She looks at him one last time, but it's just a sad glance. 

“I love you, Ev.” Maddie whispers before Doug throws his arm over her shoulder and starts guiding her to their car. He’s saying something to her as he holds her close to his side, but Evan can’t tell what he’s saying as they move further away. He just sighs before putting the car in reverse once again. This time he’s not so sure what’s next.

\--- 

“Edmundo, I have that guy from the bank coming in in an hour. We need this place to be ready.” Ramon says as he looks at the stack of paper’s Eddie spent way too long organizing for his dad to knock off the desk. He just sighs as he picks them up and tries finding the order. 

“I made the appointment, Dad. I know,” He can feel the glare coming from his dad as he stands back up. “Everything is ready. I just needed to finish printing the week's expense reports.”

How his dad managed to start his own shop is beyond Eddie. He went from traveling salesman to part owner of the local convenience store in a snap. It was a shock to everyone when he bought the place. Eddie would never forget the days going from afterschool to helping his dad rip the place apart to make it his own.

“Eddie, this is important.” He hears as he turns to face his dad. The papers weren’t too much of a mess. He’s just glad the printer puts the little page numbers at the bottom. “The bank is being testy again, but we’re doing good. We just have to look good too.”

Eddie nods while wishing he could roll his eyes. He’ll admit the business was doing well, but his mom would be there any minute to make sure the meeting went right. His dad was going to be negative until there weren't any complaints though. Eddie was  
dreading coming in tomorrow for that exact reason, because the bank always has on critique on the company and his dad would be pissed about it for weeks.

“I’ve got my shift at the garage in 30 minutes, Dad. It’s time for me to go. Mom’ll be here soon.” His dad just huffs at that and tells him to go then. Eddie debates smashing his head into the steering wheel when he gets in his car. He needs to figure something else out. His sister’s got out of this. He’ll figure out how to as well soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning:
> 
> Buck has a panic attack over his parent's missing his graduation.  
> Mentions of the Buckley parent's being absent from their children's lives and neglectful.
> 
> Eddie tries to be more loving towards Shannon for the sake of Chris and their marriage. Their issues are barely brought up though.
> 
> Maddie is detailed as looking extremely thin and sick looking. Doug is possessive and Maddie is skittish around him.  
> Buck also mentions their sick grandpa. Only mentioned though.


	2. we just always seem to just fallout when i'm most in need of it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggers at the end as always. 
> 
> Chapter title from the song "Fallout" by Catfish and the Bottlemen
> 
> Thanks again for reading! This chapter is really dialogue heavy and I kinda hate that, but I'm content enough to post it. I really hate calling Buck "Evan" so that's changed in this chapter.

Evan stares at his shoes as he’s led through the house. The maid seemed nice, but the situation was just off putting. He’d been in Florida for 12 hours before he decided this was his next stop. A week since he left home, and he felt more lost than he did before he left. 

“Mel, you have a visitor.” The maid, Lisa is her name… or at least he thinks it is, says after stopping in a doorway. He doesn’t think she’s really a maid, but that’s the best title he can think of right now. His heart pounding in his chest as he moves to the doorway himself and sees his grandma sitting in a chair by the window with a book in her hands. 

“Evan!” She exclaims jumping up to come hug him. “It’s been so long. Look at how tall you are.”

She goes to step out of his embrace as she says it, but he stops her. He needed this. He really needed this. This was the expectation when he went to Maddie. After a moment though, he lets go. His grandma sends a small smile towards him. 

“Lisa, we’ll be okay for the rest of today. Enjoy the rest of your day.” She says looking past him. He watches the lady, who couldn’t be older than 20, thank her before offering Mel her own hug and Evan a polite smile. 

“Has she been working here long?” He asks as they move towards the living room. 

“6 months? I’m not sure. Around the time when I stopped wanting to leave your grandpa home alone. She mostly just does errands. Groceries, mail, a little bit of cleaning.” She eyes him a little bit. The suspicion showing. “What are you doing all the way over here though? Quite the trip from New York.”

He tenses at the mention of his home state. His parent’s moved there when he was 5 from Tallahassee. They claimed it had more opportunity. Doug thought the same thing until he randomly brought Maddie to Hersey. Evan knows he has family like an hour away, but the sudden move was a lot to him.

“I was visiting Maddie, and decided I’d rather come here than go home.” He shrugs. Evan’s not getting out of this conversation. Melaney Waine was a force to be reckoned with. She sure did hate her son-in-law too, so he knew she was going to push this.

“Now, as much as my little Buckaroo loves me, an across country trip doesn’t sound right still.” Evan shrugged at that. What was he supposed to say? He saw how the conversation with Maddie went. 

“Buckaroo? I haven’t heard that in ages, Grandma.” He smiles trying to deflect the real conversation. It might actually work as she rolls her eyes at him and starts talking. 

“You used to refuse being called Evan. Your parents were furious as you ran around saying your name was ‘Buck’ now.” Evan sat there for a minute. He really did dread his name and the nickname pisses his parent’s off. 

“I don’t know why I ever went back to Evan.” He smirks at her as she raises an eyebrow. “Buck sounds so much cooler. Maybe I should go back to it.”

“I think you should. You would get so excited when Grandpa called you it. It fits you better than Evan.” He just nods and glances down the hall where he knows his Grandpa is sleeping.

“How bad is it?” She just frowns at that and shakes her head. Mel had been avoiding thinking about the prognosis for a long time now. There wasn’t anything left to do, but wait now and she wasn’t giving anything but spending time with her husband. 

“That’s not a question we ask around here, Buck.”

\---

“Eddie, we’ve gotta go.” Shannon whines as she picks up the diaper bag. Eddie looked up from where Chris was in lap and saw the glare going his way. He swallowed quickly before standing up and tucking Chris against his hip.

“Uh, yeah. Right, sorry. Do you have keys?” He asks as he pats his pockets with one hand. There’s a jingle noise of keys knocking against each other as soon as the word keys leaves his mouth. Eddie looks up to see his wife with a soft smile on her face and the keys to his truck looped around her index finger.

“We’re late, Eddie. You know how your mother is when we’re late for family dinner.” He just nods and grabs the keys from her. It takes him a minute to put Christopher in his seat, but they leave soon enough. He hates that damn seat though.

“What’s your mom going to come at us for today?” She asks with annoyance heavy in her voice.

“I don’t like it either, Shan, but if you’re looking at going back to school then we need to be on her good side.” Shannon rolls her eyes at that.

“Maybe I shouldn’t go back.” Eddie sends her a confused look. She’s been talking about going back since a year into his deployment. He didn’t reenlist because he knew she needed to be happy and his dad needed the help with the store right now. “I’m turning 22 next month, Eddie. I should’ve been graduating soon.”

“You’ve got the first 2 years done though. If you really wanted to go back, now is the time. My dad’s willing to give us that loan.”

“I don’t want your parent’s mom.” She huffs. “I should’ve had my inheritance still.”

Eddie rolls his eyes now. “Alright, yeah. Maybe you should, but we needed to get the house. Chris needed somewhere that wasn’t that awful apartment.”

“The mouse was cute.” She argues, making Eddie shake his head. 

“You cried the first time you saw the mouse. Derrick almost passed out.” He reminds her. Her own brother hates when she tries arguing for that place. Eddie doesn’t get why she tries making the house feel unnecessary.

“My brother wasn’t living there.” Eddie slams on the breaks as the light changes to red. Shannon glares at him as he turns to her with a look of disbelief.

“Right, just on our couch for 4 months. He was quick to leave when I enlisted and you needed him.” He mumbles as the light changes and he has to focus on the road again. 

“Like I didn’t need you too.”

“I didn’t have a choice. We needed the money. He was rent free until then with no job.” He argues as she narrows her eyes at him. 

“Derrick’s not the problem here!” She yells, but quickly throws her hand over her mouth and glances at where Chris was sitting. He was nodding off to sleep when she yelled and was puffing out his lip like he was going to start wailing now.

“Hey, no. Chris, baby, don’t cry.” Shannon tries calming him down, but it’s too late and he’s screaming. 

“Damnit, Shannon.” Eddie says as he pulls into his parent’s driveway. He hurries to park the car and get to the toddler. Once Christopher is out of his seat, Eddie can’t get him to calm down. Shannon is by his side quickly though. Chris calms down quicker in her arms. 

“I know you’re trying, but you forget that a month isn’t enough for you to not be a stranger to him.” Eddie just closes his eyes and leans against his truck as she heads into the house. He puts his all into this and is still messing up.

\---

“Buck,” His grandma starts as she leaves the master bedroom. The name still sounds weird, but comforting. He’s not the “dye my hair” type, when he needs something new, so the name feels like the right way to go. “Come here. He wants to see ya.”

The racing heart was back as he approached the room. He knew he would be facing this, but he was more focused on the comfort of the visit rather than the pain. Buck’s footsteps trudge as he gets to the doorway.

Looking in he sees a bright smile first. His aunt and grandma always said he got his smile from his Grandpa Carter. His eyes follow the wrinkling skin under his eyes and sees the sunken nature of the blue eyes staring back at him.

“Is that really you, Buckaroo? I couldn’t believe your grandmother when she said you were here.” Buck smiles back and moves to sit on the edge of the bed. He grabs his grandpa’s hand before really responding.

“Yeah, Grandpa. It’s Buck. Thought you both deserved a visit.” The comment made the older man smile again.

“We’re always happy to see you. Are you watching football nowadays? Your grandma hates talking about it.” Buck laughs at that as he hears his grandma huff from her spot in the doorway. He glances at her and she’s got a teary smile.

“I watch the Bills. Your Dolphins haven’t been doing too good from what I hear, though.” The look he gets in response to that makes him laugh. 

“Your daddy really did raise you wrong, didn’t he?” He says shaking his head at Buck. “The Dolphins are going all the way. The Bills? You can’t like the Jets or something at least?”

It’s Buck’s turn to laugh at that. He missed family dinners where everyone was together. Half were yelling at the players on the screen while the other’s gossiped. His dad wasn’t as invested in work back then. His mom was, but she made time still. He had pictures of him decked out in football gear even though he didn’t know anything about the game back then.

“I had a recruiter from LSU and Alabama reach out after my last game. I don’t think I’m gonna go, but the possibility was cool.” He says with a sad smile. 

“You can do whatever you want to, Buckaroo. Just make it worthwhile.” Buck just nods at his words.

\---

“Edmundo, you look awful.” He hears from behind him. Eddie rolls his eyes as his abuela sets some plates in the sink between them.

“Thanks, Abuela.” He responds sarcastically. This conversation wasn’t going to end well. 

“You know what I’m talking about.” She adds with a knowing look. “You’re running yourself into the ground.”

“I have a family to think about, Abuela.” The sigh that escapes his lips is too heavy. He doesn’t even want to think about all the things weighing him down in his life.

“You have yourself to think about.” He goes to argue against that, but she cuts him off. “You can’t be there for those you love, if you aren’t there yourself.”

Eddie doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything. He stands there and helps clean the dishes. There’s a light tune flowing through the kitchen that he tries to focus on. The fight with Shannon echoes in his head. His abuela might have a point, but it wasn’t the answer to his problems. He needed to get his marriage functioning again. Christopher was just starting to get comfortable with him, so he needed to keep working on that bond. 

“I’m moving to L.A.” His abuela announces interrupting his thoughts.

“What?”

“Your Tia wants me to move out there, and it feels like the right move for me. Your Mama is driving me up the wall, Eddie.”

Eddie just stares at her. He’s hoping she’ll say this is some joke, but he sees in her eyes that it’s not. The one semblance of peace he has besides his son is leaving the state. His abuela who had been there with him through it all was leaving him too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Triggers:
> 
> Buck has some minor anxiety.
> 
> Eddie and Shannon get into a fight.
> 
> Sick grandparents
> 
> Buck and Eddie will meet probably at the end of the next chapter. I was planning on it being this chapter, but I needed some plot points set up first.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at may-grant on Tumblr!


End file.
